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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416877">a little more human</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote'>renecdote</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hugs [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hawaii Five-0 (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Steve is figuring it out too, and Danny gets that, mostly comfort, sometimes you just need a hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:40:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,507</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s pretty sure Navy SEALs aren’t supposed to look like they need hugs.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve McGarrett &amp; Danny "Danno" Williams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hugs [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a little more human</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the hug prompt 'stealth'. Seat early seasons, probably one but I didn't think too much about it tbh.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve never sees it coming. </p><p>Not because it’s particularly sneaky or so fast he doesn’t have time to react; it’s just that he’s not expecting it. Why should he be? There is no life or death experience, no emotions running high, no good news to celebrate or bad news to comfort. There is just the quiet of the office late at night; Chin and Kono long gone home; Steve’s eyes aching from staring too long at his laptop screen; Danny tugging at his arm and saying, “Hey, come here—”</p><p>And then a hug. </p><p>Steve freezes in it, joints locking up, muscles tense, brain blanking out like it has run into some kind of error code. <em>404: healthy human interaction not found.</em> He gets with the program quick enough though, hugs back when Danny squeezes him a little, lets his eyes close for a second, just a second, soaking up whatever the hell this is before Danny pulls back.</p><p>Steve feels more than a little wrong footed, caught off guard the way that not much can achieve these days.</p><p>“What was that for?” he asks.</p><p>Danny shrugs. “Been a long day. You looked like you needed a hug.”</p><p>Steve just blinks at him. He’s pretty sure Navy SEALs aren’t supposed to look like they need hugs. </p><p>“Or maybe I needed a hug,” Danny continues. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”</p><p>Danny does look like someone who might need a hug, now that Steve is looking for it. His tie is crooked, knot coming loose, and his sleeves had been pushed up past his elbows at some point but now one of them is falling down again, wrinkled and unbuttoned at the cuff. It’s in his eyes, though, that Steve sees the draining effect of the case they’ve been working. Four days of non-stop work, coming in early and staying late, running themselves ragged chasing dead end after dead end. Steve has barely been home in that time, just catching cat naps on the couch in his office between leads; and even though he’s been making the others go home every night (trying, at least, because they’re as stubborn and dedicated as he is), he doesn’t think they’ve been getting much more sleep than he has.</p><p>It’s always harder when there are kids involved. On all of them, but Danny especially. Steve heard him on the phone to Grace earlier and even then his voice had been strained, rough around the edges despite the effort he put in to sound relaxed and upbeat. </p><p>So yeah, maybe Danny does need a hug. He looks a little surprised when Steve pulls him back into one though. </p><p>“We’re gonna catch this guy, Danno,” he promises against the top of his partner’s head. </p><p>Danny huffs out a breath, like he’s amused but too tired to even try to laugh. “‘Course we are,” he agrees. “You’re like a—what’s that dog? From that movie? Little yappy, growly thing, gets its teeth in the guy’s pants and doesn’t let go until they rip right off him.”</p><p>Steve shakes his head, a little amused, a little not-sure-if-he-should-be-annoyed about being compared to a small dog. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“‘Course you don’t.” There’s an eye roll in there, probably, hidden somewhere around Steve’s shoulder. “It’s a kids movie. You probably just watch Top Gun on repeat.”</p><p>“Top Gun?”</p><p>“I know it’s your favourite movie, don’t lie to me.”</p><p>Danny is smiling when this hug ends, which is a definite improvement. Steve is pretty sure he’s smiling a little too, which is—huh, Danny might have had a point about him needing a hug. </p><p>“What?” Danny asks. “What’s that goofy look for?”</p><p>“No reason.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” Danny Williams is a deeply suspicious person. “You’re not growing feelings now, are you? One hug and you turn into a real boy, ’s that it? Maybe I should have tried that earlier, might have saved myself some bullet holes.”</p><p>Steve rolls his eyes. Maybe it was the hug, or maybe it’s just how damn tired he is, but he does feel a little more human than usual. A little less capable of being as super as his teammates like to say he is (sometimes admiring, sometimes grouchy, sometimes teasing, depending on who is doing the saying). There is a dull ache in his neck which could be from tackling a suspect twelve hours ago, or could just be from sitting bent over his computer for too long. He’s restless with the need to do something, take some kind of action, but it’s a muted kind of restlessness, buried beneath the heavy fog of exhaustion. He’s been drinking so much coffee it’s starting to make him feel sick, but he keeps drinking more anyway because caffeine and stubborn determination are the only things keeping him going.</p><p>Caffeine and stubborn determination and (maybe) that hug.</p><p>But he doesn’t share any of that. For forms sake, he keeps up the bickering.</p><p>“More Tin Man jokes? Really?”</p><p>“Pinocchio, babe. Pinocchio was the one who wanted to be a real boy.”</p><p>“I knew that.”</p><p>“No you didn’t.”</p><p>“I was just making sure you knew that.”</p><p>He can see the eye roll this time. “You’re so full of shit, Steven.”</p><p>It’s easy to get lost in arguing with Danny. It’s probably been a whole minute, maybe longer, since Steve thought about the case, which is more than he can say for the last few days. He’s even been dreaming about it, which has been its own kind of awful, mind unable to shut off and recharge even in sleep. Every blink is filled with crime scene photos and jigsaw pieces of evidence that don’t seem to fit together, not well enough to make the whole picture clear. There is something missing, something crucial, and Steve has to find it, or—</p><p>He doesn’t want to think about the or. </p><p>Maybe it’s something on his face, or maybe it’s just the day (week) they’ve had, but Danny frowns at him, all the joviality they built up dissipating like fine mist.</p><p>“When’s the last time you slept?” he asks.</p><p>Steve takes too long to think about it, his silence its own kind of incriminating. </p><p>“Ate?” Danny persists. “And those disgusting energy bars you keep in your desk don’t count.”</p><p>“Chin brought in muffins…”</p><p>“That was yesterday.”</p><p>Was it? Steve shakes his head. He must have eaten since then. </p><p>Danny sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on, I’m taking you home.”</p><p>Steve glances back at his laptop, the screen dimmed but still on. Danny reaches around him to snap it closed. “Don’t even try to argue,” he says, before Steve can open his mouth to do just that. “You already sent everyone else home, it’s only fair you follow your own orders.”</p><p>Steve crosses his arms. “If I sent everyone else home, why are you still here?”</p><p>“Because <em>you</em> are still here.”</p><p>Danny’s tone suggests that should have been obvious.</p><p>Maybe it would have been, if Steve wasn’t so damn tired. He resists the urge to rub at his eyes; it probably wouldn’t help anyway.</p><p>“Fine,” he gives in, reluctant but willing to concede (to himself, not to Danny) that he might be a little closer to burnt out than ideal for anything that requires actual thinking. And solving crimes definitely requires thinking. “But I’m driving.”</p><p>Danny snorts. “Yeah, no, I don’t think so. I risk my life enough getting in a vehicle with you, I don’t want to add ‘falling asleep at the wheel’ to the many ways you might get me killed in a fiery wreck.”</p><p>“I’m not going to fall asleep at the wheel.”</p><p>“Babe, you can barely walk in a straight line.”</p><p>“I can walk just fine—”</p><p>But Danny does end up driving. And Steve must fall asleep, or at least zone out, because the next thing he knows, Danny is shaking his shoulder, telling him they’ve arrived, and his house is looming dark through the windshield in front of him. Everything has that blurry, just-woke-up quality to it and the ache in his neck is worse from sleeping against the window. He stumbles a little getting out of the car and hopes Danny doesn’t notice. </p><p>“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” his partner calls after him, leaning across the passenger seat before Steve can slam the door. </p><p>He toys with the idea of inviting Danny in for a beer, but it’s late—later than he realised—and they are both running on fumes. He toys with the idea of saying “you don’t need to drive all the way home, man, just crash here” for slightly longer before letting that thought drift away as well. </p><p>What he says is, “Thanks.”</p><p>Thanks for the lift. Thanks for being such a great partner. Thanks for the hug. </p><p>“Any time,” Danny replies easily.</p><p>And Steve knows, the way that he knows they will solve this case just like they've solved every other one, that Danny isn’t just talking about the lift.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ending this one was ridiculously hard for some reason, it went through about seven different versions before this one so I hope it turned out alright. I have a few more of the hug prompts close or close-ish to being done but I'm not sure which will be up next. If you guys have a preference between 'first/last', 'near miss' and 'fly-by hugs' (or any of the others listed in the series summary) let me know :)</p><p>Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love ❤️ You can also find me on tumblr <a href="https://renecdote.tumblr.com">here</a> if you'd like.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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